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Monday, April 30, 2012

Marinated Steak Tacos - Cinco de Mayo

It is Cinco de Mayo Friday so we are having Mexican food week. I actually do a unit on Mexico at school with my fourth grade art class and at the end we celebrate Cinco de Mayo by making our own tortillas in class. I can't wait for that tomorrow (I don't work on Fridays so we have to do it early). I put a link below to how to make your own tortillas too because once you make them yourself you will never want store bought ones again.

At home, I could eat Mexican food every day. I really wanted to make my own tamales but I could not find any local corn husks, so I will have to do that another time and order the corn husks online. There are not many Mexican markets in New Hampshire! I decided to make a marinated steak taco instead. The recipe is from this Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications - simply titled Mexican. I think this might be the same one on Amazon but the cover is different. It is FULL of great authentic Mexican recipes and little facts. I have been drooling over it for months and it was past time to try something from it. This recipe calls for flank steak, which is not my favorite, so I opted for a round steak that was sliced thin. You can use either.

3. In a medium sized bowl combine the rest of the ingredients for the marinade: lime juice, canola oil, chili powder, minced garlic, and salt. Pour over the steak in the bag, zip it shut, and make sure the marinade coats all the meat.

4. Place the bag in the fridge for 60-90 minutes.

5. Grill the meat over a charcoal grill or an electric indoor grill (like I did).

I actually cheated on my Mexican rice since I was already making tortillas and the steak (you can't make everything the right way), by combining 2 cups rice cooked in a rice cooker, a half a jar of my favorite salsa - Green Mountain Salsa - and a bit of garlic to lessen the acidity of the salsa. It comes out mooshy instead of fluffy like when you do Mexican rice the right way, but it works! Check out the ingredients on the Green Mountain Salsa:

ALL OF OUR PRODUCTS ARE: All Natural, No Preservatives or artificial colors or flavors. Gluten Free, Cholesterol Free, No GMO's (Genetically modified produce).

That is what a food label should look like! This stuff TASTES AMAZING too and they actually sell it online by the case, which my Mom did buy one year and passed it out to her friends back home.

To make the tacos into a frozen Mealpod (after devouring several fresh) I mixed the rice and corn together and put it in the bottom of a Mealpod foil packet (simply a sheet of heavy duty foil) and placed two strips of steak on top.

Mealpod.us & Mealpod.blogspot.com are the websites of sisters Melissa Blickem and Nicole Caulfield.

We both have lost weight and kept it off for years through planning ahead with our meals and our family's meals. We would like to share our recipes, cooking/planning system, and talk about heath & fitness in general. We don't agree on everything but both agree that thinking ahead is the key to success with staying healthy.

To learn more about how our planning system works (no it is not something we sell) read this blog and visit our main webiste @ mealpod.us.